


Zusa, Sister of Iroh

by quietprofanity



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Incest, Sibling Incest, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 01:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4080874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietprofanity/pseuds/quietprofanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iroh loves his sister, perhaps more than he’d like to admit. So what’s he supposed to think when she brings home a boyfriend that looks so much like him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, leaders and inspirations, for simultaneously knowing and not knowing when to stop; and to my dear friends wrongfun and angryinterrobang (who came up with the Fire Princess’ name), for laughing at and encouraging this sick joke.

~*~*~

From the moment his sister was born, Iroh had heard three words drilled into him again and again: “Love your sister.”

The words came from his mother Izumi -- an understanding and fair yet also reserved and bookish woman, rarely flappable even before she’d ascended to the Fire Nation throne -- and his grandfather Zuko, who was similarly serious but always kind and willing to give of his time even before he’d left the position and began traveling the world. When Iroh was still a child, and -- barring his always-sickly father’s untimely death -- mostly protected from the harsh realities of the world, he wondered if this had something to do with Great-Aunt Kiyi. Unlike the other women in his family, she wasn’t a princess or queen, and while she ate with them at meals in the palace, she always sat with the advisors during public events instead of on the dais.

“It’s because they don’t want you and Zusa to end up like your grandfather and his sister,” his grandmother intoned, sniffing loudly at the end of the sentence. Like her ex-husband, Grandma Mai sat and stood with a hunch, but still seemed to be looking down at people, her gray eyebrows set in an eternal glare.

“What are you talking about?” Iroh asked. “What’s wrong with Grandpa and Kiyi?”

His grandmother sniffled again. “I meant his real sister.”

“Mother!” the then-Princess Izumi scolded. “Don’t talk about Kiyi that way. She’s still family.”

Grandma Mai rolled her eyes, but she was cowed enough that she didn’t explain further under Izumi’s glare, despite Iroh’s entreaties.

It was years later, when Iroh was 12-years-old and his sister six, that his grandfather told him about Great Aunt Azula, about his nation’s bloody and shameful past and the peace that they cherished. Perhaps it was that truth that caused Iroh to join the United Forces, to be something both a part of and separate from the Fire Nation’s legacy. But before then, he listened to his mother and grandfather. He loved his sister, played with her when she was small and answered her questions as she grew. They were too far apart in age to really grow up together, Zusa spending most of the year at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls and while he went to the General Iroh Boys’ Preparatory School. Still, whenever he came home Iroh would be impressed by Zusa’s growing intelligence, eloquence, wit and athleticism. Unlike Iroh and her own namesake, Zusa wasn’t lucky enough to be a firebender, but she could work him into a bit of a sweat when she began fighting with the naginata at age twelve.

At that time, though, Iroh was eighteen and left the Fire Nation Palace for what would become years to go to the Royal University and then immediately join the United Forces.

“Give me a good-bye kiss, little sister,” Iroh said with a smile, his arms outstretched for a hug. In the years to come, he would try to assure himself that he’d also bent his cheek toward her, but instead she kissed him on the lips, prompting his family to erupt into laughter.

He hadn’t been a fully inattentive son and brother. He wrote Izumi and Zusa, even started phoning his mother when she had a telephone installed in the throne room. (“The worst invention ever created!” his mother shouted over miles and miles of the newly-installed wires beneath the sea. “Your grandmother calls me every day, asking me to answer for those nasty editorials that they write about me in Republic City calling me a lame duck. Every single day, Iroh!”) Still, he ended up really liking university and the military: the new friends, the travel, the girls.

When Iroh first came back home, he was twenty-four, and in his most confident moments (which came more and more every day) he felt like a man, was happy to be greeted as a man in his newly-decorated uniform.

“Your sister hasn’t come back from school yet, but she’ll be at your homecoming party,” a servant had said.

The party was something of an extravagance, but Izumi’s press director (another concession to modernity and her mother that she hated) insisted that a public display of affection for her accomplished son would endear her to the people, and Izumi told Iroh that she was, indeed, proud of him. “There are still people who’ll rip me apart for this,” she grumbled when they sat together on the dais. “I can see the headlines now. ‘The New Queen Hou-Ting? Fire Lord Throws Party for Son Fighting for False, Upstart Country While People Starve.’”

“Don’t be stupid,” Grandma Mai grumbled from her chair on the other side of Iroh. “That’s too big for a headline.”

Izumi glared at her mother, but when that failed to impress any sense of tact or need for apology on the old woman, Izumi stood up and tapped her glass. The banquet hall -- full of mayors and business leaders and other important people -- came to silence as Izumi spoke. As always, the Fire Lord praised the Nation’s continued decades of peace, the need to keep pace with modernity while being mindful of the country’s environment and its people. Iroh watched the guests’ faces grow increasingly bored and distracted, started to feel himself drift off, when he saw a door open at the back of the banquet hall.

Iroh’s breath caught in his throat. It took a minute before he registered who the young woman was, but as she approached the dais from the outskirts of the room, giving that familiar awkward smile and nod whenever she accidentally bumped into someone, he knew immediately.

What had happened? Iroh thought as Zusa took her seat on the opposite side of Izumi. She’d grown her hair down to her back and tied about half of it up in large, traditional braids that made upright circles on either side of her head. Meanwhile she’d dressed in a bright red dress with gold filigree decorating the tight form-fitting bodice and hips, which flared out around her knees and ankles. As awkward as her journey to the dais had been, she smiled regally as soon as she sat down, her face glowing.

Iroh couldn’t keep his eyes off her. His mother asked him to give a speech of thanks and he kept stumbling over his words. When the dinner arrived, he kept looking out the corner of his eye.

As the meal ended, the party retired to the ballroom. As he got up, Zusa was suddenly at his side, her strong arms clasped around one of his.

“Dance with me, big brother?” she asked, a wide smile on her beautiful, mature face that only slightly reminded him of the 12-year-old girl he remembered.

He probably should have said that wasn’t appropriate, but he found it hard to resist, wanted so much to talk with her. When they danced, though, Iroh could only stare, his hand sweating against the tight fabric of her shapely hip. A courtier of his mother’s told him they looked sweet together. He’d spent the whole time trying not to picture her naked.

Maybe I should get out of here, find a girl in the red light district or something, Iroh thought. But that had never been him. He’d visit Republic City bars with his fellow soldiers, but wouldn’t do anything more with the girls than admire and dance. He barely even drank.

He could drink three bottles of sake right now.

Iroh walked to the palace gardens, to the turtle-duck pond that had been preserved for years, and saw her there. Zusa smiled as he approached, and this time she didn’t remind him at all of a 12-year-old girl.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she purred. Before Iroh could say anything Zusa ran to him, clasped her arms around him. “Oh, it’s been so, so long. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you. I read your letters every day, kept every picture.”

“You … you did?” he breathed, his hands getting lost in her straight black hair, feeling her slim body and soft breasts against him. “Why … why didn’t you send some?”

Zusa looked up at him and smiled, a playful glint in her eye. “Would you have liked me to, big brother?”

His body reacted before he could chide it not to. Iroh saw his sister blush. “Zusa, I’m sorr--” but her lips were already on his.

He should have listened to that voice that told him to stop, that told him to push her away, instead he let their tongues find each other. When she leaped up and wrapped her legs around his waist Iroh pressed her against a tree and hiked up her dress even further.

“That was wrong,” Iroh said when they were done, but they did it again, several times, before he left for the United Forces. Whenever he left, he would swear that he’d never do anything like that again, only to find himself powerless when she snuck into his room at night.

They’d been doing this off-and-on for six years when Iroh told her they had to try to find other people. He dated here and there himself, but nothing ever stuck. When he was thirty-six, sometime after Avatar Korra famously left Republic City for a long convalescence, he spent a few months dating Asami Sato.

“I hate seeing you with her,” Zusa sobbed from the other end of phone line.

“We can’t talk like this here,” Iroh growled back, trying to keep his voice low even though he was speaking to her from his private phone line in his barracks. “You knew I was dating other people. I told you to try to find someone, too.”

“I didn’t have to see their stupid, ugly faces plastered in the society pages!”

Iroh frowned. “Don’t call her ugly, that’s beneath you!”

“Don’t tell me what to do! You don’t know what it’s like, being lonely and away from you.”

“Zusa, you’re being a child!”

The line disconnected. He tried to call her back, but she never picked up. Iroh told himself he was right, that Zusa was always much younger than him and didn’t understand, but when Asami broke up with him a week later, told him her heart wasn’t in it, Iroh couldn’t help but feel like he’d made a terrible mistake.

His sister didn’t return his calls or letters for the next three years.

~*~*~

A week before what would become his aborted coronation, Prince Wu made a diplomatic visit to the Fire Nation.

“‘The incumbent ruler of the Earth Kingdom humbly requests the presence of a five-course meal, traditional Fire Nation bands, fire dancers, masquerade and …’” Izumi pushed her glasses further up on her brow, her eyes wide, as she continued to read the letter. “‘... a troupe of no less than five dancing lion-vultures?’ Is he mad?”

Mai snuffed and blew on her tea. “Just give him the meal and the fire dancers,” she sipped her tea, scrunched up her face. “Well, maybe one dancing lion-vulture. We don’t want this kid causing a war or something.”

Some servant probably deserved a raise or some time off, because they managed to find a fire dancing troupe that worked with a dancing lion-vulture. As always, the three generations of Fire Nation leaders sat on thrones off to the side, watching the spectacle - as they watched everything - with blank, stern faces. Still, the guests were fairly riveted, and that was what mattered. Most of the guests, anyway …

“Thank you, thank you!” Prince Wu crowed as he took the stage, waved at the Fire Lord’s family and her guests with a huge, ridiculous smile. “While it’s clear that the Fire Nation sadly no longer has its wealth or glory of years past, regrettably not even being able to afford the five dancing lion-vultures I asked for, as the incoming ruler of the Earth Kingdom I’m happy to greet you as great -- though sadly diminished -- allies in what will surely be a long and glorious reign for me …”

Zusa hadn’t exactly been trying to listen to the speech, but she was completely ignoring it when she caught a glimpse of a man standing off to the side of the stage, his arms crossed, looking bored and vaguely angry.

“It can’t be …” she whispered under her breath, and yet his body, his coloring, his hair was so ... Zusa realized her mother was staring at her. She smiled awkwardly and shook her head.

Still, when that ridiculous speech was over, and Fire Lord Izumi greeted Prince Wu for their terse, unpleasant conversation, Zusa snuck away and found the guy.

“Hello,” she said, her voice low and breathy. “May I ask your name, sir?”

The guy looked back at her with wide eyes, like he was shocked that she wanted to talk to him at all. “Um … Mako.”

Princess Zusa giggled, her cheeks turning red. “Wow, what a cool name. Um, so … so what’s a Fire Nation man like you doing working for a prince like Wu? You know, since he’s … um, from the Earth Kingdom, and stuff.”

“I’m, um, I’m actually from the United Republic. I’m just doing this bodyguarding … thing, um. I’m sorry, but why are you talking to me?”

“Well, I …” Zusa giggled again, her face turning even redder. She put a hand on Mako’s chest. “ … I was just wondering if you wanted to come back to my room you handsome, handsome guy.”

Some sort of light must have gone on then because Mako’s eyes somehow got even wider. “Wow, um. Thanks. That’s … surprising, and flattering. But I … I sort of have this thing, and …”

Zusa’s smile fell. “Oh … do you have a girlfriend?”

“Well, no, but …”

Her eyes glanced over at Wu. “Are you … with him?”

“What?” Mako shook his head horrified. “No, no. I’m … Well, he’s not … Actually, I don’t know what his deal is half the time.”

“So … maybe you and I could get away from here, and …”

“Well,” Mako coughed. “It’s just that I have to leave for the United Republic … tomorrow … I’m pretty sure it’s tomorrow.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pad and paper, which Zusa promptly took from his hands. “Hey!”

“Well …” Zusa scribbled on the pad, then handed it back to him. “If you ever change your mind, you can call me here anytime.” She winked at him and walked away, letting her hips sway as she did.

~*~*~

After deflecting Wu’s initial obnoxious questions, Mako never thought about the number. Okay, he would think in private moments to himself, getting some attention from a princess was kind of nice, and she was pretty, he guessed. Still, he wasn’t looking for a relationship right now. He didn’t really plan to do that, at all.

Months later, after Varrick and Zhu-Li got married, after his best friend walked away into the Spirit World with someone who wasn’t him, he went searching for the note.

End Part One.


	2. Chapter 2

~*~*~

Republic City wasn’t built in a day, nor was it rebuilt in a day when the Spirit Vines took root in the city. This latest rebuilding would be the most difficult, expanding the city out into the suburban and even the mountain regions. Still, after three months, the initial crisis was basically over.

There were people who grumbled about the Avatar and the city’s premiere industrialist leaving so soon after the initial cleanup, but it’s not as if Asami Sato was going to be laying down the bricks herself even after she came back. The United Forces had engineers who knew how to fix the roads and bridges, who knew how to find and put good people to work. There were complaints about how money was spent and how much relied on benders’ labor -- some of whom weren’t even citizens of the republic. However, Iroh couldn’t see the wisdom in turning away so many people who wanted to work.

It had all been easier when the other countries were really in charge of the republic, Iroh thought as he sat in his cabin on the ship that would take him home for his first month-long furlough in years. This exclusionary nonsense had been what fed the wars. Everyone who lived in the United Republic had family that really came from somewhere else, and the more Raiko had tried to throw up the borders and keep the other countries’ people and problems out of his own … well, Iroh supposed it would eventually not be his business anymore. Still, it was frustrating how the United Republic cried about independence these days when their protection was essentially made up of people who weren’t its citizens.

Oh well, he thought. He stared out at the water even though the islands of the Fire Nation wouldn’t appear for several hours. It wouldn’t be a problem he’d have to consider for the next few months. He was coming home and he was happy. He was content.

He didn’t know his sister had a boyfriend.

~*~*~

Zusa had to be kidding.

It was like looking in a mirror. Okay, not exactly. There was the gauntlet on his left arm. And he was a bit taller, his face more … triangular, Iroh supposed. And if anything, the guy could stand to be more like Iroh in the eyebrow department. The guy had been sitting at the table in the dining hall next to Zusa, cheerfully talking to Kiyi, who sat on the other side of him, while Fire Lord Izumi and Grandma Mai watched like dour messager-hawks. When he saw Iroh come in he waved. As Zusa leaped to her feet, a triumphant glint in her eye, the guy held out his hand.

“Good to see you again,” he said.

Iroh looked at his hand like it was a spider-rat. His eyes traveled up to the guy’s face, watched it fall.

“This is my boyfriend, Mako.” Zusa cuddled up close to him, hugging Mako’s free arm.

“Yeah, we’ve met,” Mako said. He sounded deeply disappointed. “Don’t you remember?”

Iroh squinted at him.

“Amon’s uprising? I was with Avatar Korra. Her and I went off to go confront him while you fought Hiroshi Sato with his daughter and my brother?”

“That …” Iroh shook his head, blinked. “No. That was almost four years ago, I don’t remember. Please excuse my sister and I for a moment.” He yanked Zusa’s arm, pulled her off Mako and out of the room.

“Iroh, we’re about to have dinner!” Izumi called after him, but Iroh ignored her. When he and Zusa were alone -- their footsteps echoing in the empty hallway -- the smirk on her face drove him crazy.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Zusa shrugged, her hands clasped behind her back. “Oh, you know … living life. Loving life. Moving on.” She showed her teeth when she smiled. “Having lots of great sex.”

“I … that …” Iroh spluttered. “Zusa, this is disgusting.”

“Actually, you and I were disgusting. This is the appropriate attraction of a healthy young woman.”

Iroh crossed his arms and stared at the floor. “Well, you’re not that young anymore.”

Zusa frowned. “We’re closer in age than you and that … that woman.” She whirled on her heels and walked back to the dining hall. “Excuse me, I have to go back to that lovely time I was having.”

Iroh ground his teeth. He briefly considered leaving but, after realizing that would only make the situation worse, returned to the dining hall, his hands balled into fists.

“Is everything fine between you two?” Izumi asked as Iroh and Zusa took their seats.

“Very,” Zusa purred, snuggled up next to Mako. Iroh seethed as Mako blushed and scratched the back of his head.

Kiyi sighed at the sight. She’d grown pudgy in her old age, and seemed to gently shake as she laughed. “Oh, Zusa! What a sweet, charming man you’ve brought home! In fact, you remind me of someone …”

Iroh choked on the tea he was drinking, punched his chest as he coughed it out.

“Are you okay?” Mako asked him from across the table.

Iroh glared at him. Mako’s eyebrow raised and the side of his face twitched.

“What?” Mako asked.

“Oh, I can’t remember,” Kiyi finally said with a laugh. “I’ll think of it later. How long have you two been seeing each other, again?”

“A month,” Zusa said, her teeth showing in a wide smile.

Izumi’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses. “Really? When? Don’t you live in the United Republic, Mako?”

Mako scratched the side of his face. “Well, we’ve … we’ve kind of been talking on the phone most of that time, and a little bit before …”

“But now he’s going to be living here with me for a whole month so he can see how well we work together!” Zusa chirped, yanking Mako to her side in a way that made him wince and blush again.

Mai snuffed and stirred some sugar into a new cup of tea she’d just poured. “Why don’t we have any of those tarts that I like anymore?”

“Because your sugar’s bad,” Izumi grumbled out the side of her mouth. She turned her steely gaze back to the couple. “Had you ever been to our country before then, Mako?”

“I spent a few days here acting as bodyguard for Prince Wu, but I didn’t get to see much of the country then. Or on my second visit to see Zusa,” Mako said with a smile. “I guess that’s weird. I mean, I’ve been practically everywhere else. I’ve even been to the Spirit World.”

“And now you’re coming home,” Zusa cooed. She stroked a hand around his chin and gave him a kiss on the cheek. 

Mako shrugged and wrapped a hand around her waist. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

Iroh seethed in disgust. The servants brought out dinner at last, but Iroh could barely speak or eat. Everything Mako said sounded vacillating and asinine. Every response Zusa had sounded overly-flattering and cloying. The sound of Mako’s voice annoyed him. Zusa’s giggling seemed like a personal insult.

“What’s with you?” Grandma Mai asked him at one point. “You look like a scorpion-gerbil climbed up your butt.”

“Mother!” Izumi exclaimed, disgusted.

“What? I’m concerned for the boy.”

“He’s 40-years-old, Mother. I’m sure if he wanted to tell us what was bothering him, he would.”

“Oh, please. If there’s one thing I learned from those years married off-and-on to your father, it’s that if I waited patiently every single time he sat there seething, waiting for someone to ask about his latest boring emotional crisis …”

“Well, maybe if you did it wouldn’t have been an off-and-on marriage …” Izumi stabbed her chopsticks into her rice.

“Ah, it’s my favorite game! The ‘I’ve had the worst childhood even though my parents never tried to arrest or kill me’ game! When’s the part where you call me a terrible mother?”

The sun had only set ten minutes ago but suddenly everyone else at the table was ready to go to bed.

Iroh went back to his room for a while. (Ugh, why did he still have up the same wall scrolls from when he was sixteen? He kept telling himself to change them, but whenever he went to the market he never saw anything he liked …) Unfortunately, he couldn’t sleep. He started pacing. He thought of going to the palace’s library but he never had much use for recreational reading, and despite his hopes the Fire Nation didn’t have the same variety of radio shows as the United Republic.

He took a walk. Iroh never thought to himself that he was trying to find her, yet when he caught a glimpse of Zusa and Mako sitting on the banks of the turtle-duck pond, he didn’t hesitate to duck behind the tree and listen.

“I’m really sorry, Mako,” Zusa sighed. She snuggled up against him, their hands clasped together in his lap. “I hate when they get like that.”

“Yeah, that was … uncomfortable. But it’s okay. Families fight. I’ve seen it a bit in my extended family. And Korra used to argue with her father a lot. Actually, even my brother and I …”

“Oh, let’s not talk about exes and family!” Zusa gripped onto Mako’s jacket and kissed him. He’d been wearing this open black jacket with a popped collar and red buttons and accents that Iroh hated on sight. He’s trying too hard to be cool, Iroh assured himself.

Zusa’s new outfit had looked great, though. It was a little old-fashioned, maybe: a knee-length pink and red vest cinched tight with a red cloth belt over dark red pants and a white blouse that beautifully cupped her breasts. She pulled that white fabric open as Mako continued to kiss her.

Mako pulled away. “Wait! Here?”

“Why not?” Zusa growled. Her legs straddled Mako’s hips as she sat on top of him, rubbed her hands around the sides of her plump breasts and dark, stiff nipples. Iroh’s hand balled into a fist even as his erection throbbed between his legs. He was furious and yet even after three years he could remember what it felt like to be under her like that, to feel those breasts in his hands and those nipples in his mouth.

Mako’s face turned red. Zusa giggled and gyrated her hips over his. “Ooooh, someone’s excited.”

“W-Well, of course, but …”

“Mmm,” Zusa kissed Mako again, cutting him off. Her hands and eyes roamed over Mako’s chest. She licked, practically slobbered, over the space where his neck met his shirt collar. “Don’t … don’t talk for a bit. I just want to take you all in. I just want to …” Zusa’s sentence trailed off into an orgasmic shriek.

That did it. Iroh stepped out from behind the tree, fist raised. He planned to yank Mako away and clobber the life out of him when Mako pushed Zusa off him.

“Wait, please, Zusa. Look, you’re… You’re beautiful, okay? You’re beautiful and you’re sexy and I’m really happy to be here and normally I’d really,” Mako coughed, “really love doing this with you. I just want to do it somewhere … alone.”

“But we are alone,” Zusa said. She briefly looked up and away from Mako, started to look up.

Iroh blenched, ducked back behind the tree. Had … had she known the whole time? She must have. She ...

“Private, then,” Mako said. “Zusa, look, I … I want us to spend time together, like, real time together. Not … well, not just this. Do you know what I mean?”

Zusa stared at him for a minute, confused. “But … but this is real time together.”

“Come on. What do you do when you’re not talking to me?”

Zusa huffed. When Iroh got the courage to look back at her from behind the tree she was staring at the ground, frustrated. Her shirt was still open, but she looked distressed enough that Iroh was no longer aroused at the sight.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I can fight with a naginata. I’m pretty good. But with modern technology nobody needs that anymore.”

Mako smiled and rubbed her shoulders. “We can spar together, then. That’ll be fun. Or we can go somewhere you like. You … um, you are allowed to leave the palace, right?”

“Y-Yes!” Zusa sputtered, offended. “We’re not some xenophobic backwater like the Northern War Tribe or those idiots in Ba Sing Se who faint if they have to step outside the inner ring. We were once the leaders of architecture and industry! We had female Fire Lords and generals when the Earth Kingdom was only considering if they could have queens! Just because we don’t have ugly streetcars and highways full of polluting Satomobiles …”

Mako held up his hands in surrender. “Okay! Okay! Sheesh. I don’t know these things.”

“No, you don’t. I can leave the palace whenever I want,” Zusa huffed and crossed her arms. Iroh was about to get excited -- yes, they were going to break up! -- when Zusa suddenly smiled. “Yes, that’s right! You don’t know anything about the Fire Nation and you really should. After all, you’re Fire Nation.”

“Well, kind of …”

Zusa clasped his hands. “Oh, I’m going to show you everything! The Fire Sages’ Temples. The Great Gates of Azulon. There’s going to be a new Fire Festival in Fire Fountain City in a few days. Oh, and we have to spend a week at Ember Island!”

Mako smiled. “That sounds great. Although … can we check out some museums, too? I kind of want to see the new Air Nomads’ Memorial Museum.”

“Oh, well … if you want to. It’s kind of depressing.” Zusa closed her shirt and leaned over to kiss Mako’s cheek. “This is going to be wonderful, though.”

“Sounds like it.”

Iroh decided to leave before they noticed him, but he was already forming a plan.

~*~*~

When he entered his mother’s private chambers, she was bent over the candlestick phone, her free hand on her forehead.

“-- can’t stand her. Sometimes I think you’re the only one who understands me …” Izumi caught sight of her son and her eyebrows leaped up to meet the top of her glasses. She spoke quickly into the mouthpiece. “Hold on, my son’s here. I’ll call you back.” She slammed the receiver down its perch, hanging up.

“Who was that?” Iroh asked, his eyebrow raised.

“No one.” Izumi straightened the shoulders on her royal robes and coughed. “How can I help you, dear?”

Iroh found this all strange, but, not having any idea of who might have been on the other end of the phone, pressed on. “I’ve … ahem, I’ve received intelligence that Zusa and her new boyfriend will be …”

Izumi squinted at her son. “‘Received intelligence’?”

Iroh cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Military talk is a bit of a habit ... I mean I heard that Zusa’s taking him on a tour of the country.”

“Oh,” Izumi shrugged. “Good.”

Iroh’s eyes widened and he sputtered. “G-Good?”

“Yes, good.” Izumi stood up. She started to pace back and forth across the room. “Izumi’s never had your ambition. Which is good for you -- we’ve unfortunately had far too many usurping younger siblings in this family, but too often she’s taken her lack of responsibilities as a carte blanche to do nothing. Of course, your grandmother’s very upset, but your grandfather thinks she’s just finding herself …”

“Well, she is young … and thus in need of security.”

Izumi stopped and squinted at him. “Young? She’s 34.”

“Um, yes, 34, but … but still second in line to the throne and thus in need of some form of protection!”

“And do you need protection as first in line to the throne?” Izumi asked. She didn’t exactly yell at him but the tone of her voice told him not to pursue this point.

Iroh lowered his head, ashamed. What was he doing, anyway? “You’re right, Mother. I … I think sometimes I forget she’s not the teenager I left behind anymore.” He suddenly remembered how he’d chided Zusa earlier for not being young anymore.

For the first time he started to wonder if he was making a mistake.

Izumi’s face softened. She sighed as she took a seat again, folded her hands together. “I do value your concern for your sister, Iroh. I’m happy that you care about her.” For a few long moments, Izumi didn’t say anything, just rested her chin on her folded hands and thought. Iroh was about to ask if he could be dismissed when his mother spoke again. “I think this relationship could be good for Zusa. They’re a bit too far apart in age for my taste, but Mako seems to have something of an old soul and Zusa something of an immature one. He seems honorable. Tenzin told me that he didn’t know Mako very well but he had only good things to say about him. Lin Beifong knows him a better and said the same.” Izumi unfolded her hands, rubbed her chin. “On the other hand, he used to work with the Avatar. If my father taught me anything it’s that the Avatar’s entourage only attracts trouble.” She stood up. “You may accompany them, Iroh.”

Shocked but elated that he’d pulled off a plan that he’d begun to lose heart in, Iroh bowed to Izumi. “Thank you, mother.”

“But …” Izumi raised a finger toward him. “They’re still a wooing couple. Let them make the decisions. And …” she frowned as she spoke, “... if they need to, let them have their space. Let them be alone.”

Iroh blenched. The idea that Izumi could have known what had happened between him and Zusa itched in the back of his brain. It always did, to be honest, but on the other hand he usually had no reason to think so. Yet, she couldn’t know. Could she? Would she say something if she did?

Iroh muttered an affirmative and bowed again before leaving. As the door closed behind him, he was happy enough to have succeeded that it drowned out the lingering guilt.

They’d be rid of this guy soon enough.

End Part Two.


	3. Chapter 3

~*~*~

When Iroh strode onto the royal family’s private runway at the Capital City airport, stiff and dressed in his United Forces Uniform, he expected to be greeted with a fight, happily fantasized about his fist pounding into Mako’s face. Instead, Zusa and Mako just looked at him like he had two heads.

“So, I’m 34 and Mom wants you to be my babysitter?” Zusa asked, her lip curling into a sneer as she wrapped her arm around Mako’s.

“Not a babysitter, Zusa, security,” Iroh insisted, held himself more stiffly. “You’re a princess and given that associates of the Avatar can attract a lot of trouble …”

“What are you talking about?” Mako asked. “I worked security for the Earth Prince and nobody ever put a hit on me --”

“Well, outside of your job …”

“Where I lived as a regular civilian for almost three years?”

Iroh took a step forward so that he and Mako were almost standing chest to chest, puffed himself up and glared at him. “I am on orders from the Firelord, young man.”

Mako raised an eyebrow. “Young man?”

Zusa let out a sigh. “Whatever.” She threw a helmet at Iroh, and he flinched before catching it. “I hadn’t volunteered a pilot yet. Fly us to the Gates of Azulon.”

Mako whipped his head toward Zusa, but she was already pulling on some flight goggles. “What, really?”

“Come on,” Zusa gathered up the loose part of her clothes around her waist and hoisted herself into the middle seat on the plane. I want to be at the Fire Sage temples for lunch.”

Mako glared at Iroh. They kept eye-ing each other as Mako put on the flight gear and pulled himself into the back of the plane.

Serves you right, Iroh thought as he climbed into the pilot’s seat, although as he turned on the plane and watched the propellers spin, he felt less secure about his victory. She’s making a mistake, Iroh told himself. He’s wrong for her. Iroh sent the plane down the runway, then, as he pulled it up and into the air, he didn’t think about anything but the flight.

He first got in a plane during the battle against Hiroshi Sato’s army in Republic City, learned to fly amidst the desperation of battle. He’d been nervous to try it again, but if the United Forces were going to stay on top of technology, as President Raiko suggested, Iroh needed to be the first to learn. He quickly found it pleasant, found in it a peace that, other than his brief forays into meditating, usually eluded him. The wind was too loud for the three of them to talk to each other comfortably, so up here he could forget that he was carrying his sister and Mako behind him, could just enjoy the blue sky and even bluer water.

The flight to the gates took about two hours. Despite his serenity, Iroh wondered near the end of that time if the trip was actually worth it. Why go so long just to look at a giant statue, particularly a statue of a brutal dictator, and then turn around again?

Then he actually saw it.

Iroh had read about the Great Gates of Azulon in the history books: how they’d kept back the Fire Nation’s enemies during The Hundred Years War, how the nets would appear and the dragons would burn them if any enemy ships approached. Iroh had read about how many people had died building the gates and how many more had died defending them. None of that compared to seeing it -- how huge it was, how vast it was, the details put in by the stone-carvers working several miles above water that could tear them out to sea at any moment.

Zusa yelled something.

“What?” Mako yelled back.

“I said it’s amazing!”

“Oh!” Mako paused for a moment. “Yeah. You’re right. It’s … It’s incredible!”

It was incredible. Iroh flew around it and the dragons another time, and then flew east toward the Fire Sages Temple. He felt awe as they flew away: awe and pride, yet also a deep shame.

~*~*~

It was strange to be a tourist in your own country.

Iroh had never made sight-seeing a priority -- he didn’t visit his grandfather’s statue until his second visit to Republic City and didn’t take the climb up the Harmony Tower until his fourth. He saw things through the course of his work, like his travels in Yu Dao or that moment where he came face to face with the statue at Aang Memorial Island during the Equalist uprising. He thought it gave the experiences more meaning if he saw places with a purpose rather than seeing them just because he could.

It was much different now. Exploring the country, freed from any obligations of work, he felt a schoolboy again. Actually, it was better. There were no tests or deadlines, only the joy of learning.

The Fire Sages greeted all of them not only with the respect due to the Crown Prince and Princess, but like old family members. They ate with them before taking a tour of their temple -- which was active 200 years ago before falling into disuse during the Hundred Years War and renovated soon after -- and the fields where the Air Bison were reborn. It was like nothing Iroh had ever experienced before, this strange and beautiful intersection of old traditions and future growth.

“Have you ever been treated this well?” Zusa had asked Mako before bed that night. (As per the Fire Sages’ rules, they were all sleeping in the same hall with a few other sages who had already gone to sleep.) Iroh looked over his shoulder to see Zusa sprawled next to Mako, the back of her hand rubbing against Mako’s face.

“Well, I lived in a mansion for a few days,” Mako said. He smiled as he clasped Zusa’s wrist. “I also got invited to the palace in Ba Sing Se, but … well, they weren’t as nice.”

Cocky little jerk, Iroh thought. But he’d had a long day and he fell asleep soon after.

The next day Iroh took them on the plane to the Boiling Rock, a Hundred Years War prison long fallen into disuse. Zusa seemed to be having a great time. She was impressed with the structure of the prison, liked seeing the weapons and riding the gondola over the steaming geyser. Iroh enjoyed himself as well, although not with the same enthusiasm. This was where the Fire Nation kept prisoners of war, after all. There had to be some level of respect for the people who suffered when you visited the place, even if now the only prisoners now were some stray spider-fleas and a bunch of empty rooms. Mako seemed even more uneasy, but when the tour guide told them about Zuko, Sokka and Suki’s escape he perked up and started asking more questions.

“Where was the Avatar in all this?” Zusa asked.

The tour guide’s eyebrow raised. “Didn’t your grandfather tell you?” she asked. “The Avatar was at the Western Air Temple with Katara and the others. Sokka and Zuko came to rescue Hakoda alone.”

“Team Avatar worked without the Avatar in those days?”

“They still do!” Mako insisted. “Well, did … when we were a thing.”

At that point the tour guide realized who Mako was, said she minored in Avatar Studies at the Capital University and started asking him a million questions that Mako answered happily, mostly about how wonderful and inspiring it was to work with Korra and his favorite parts of their missions together. Iroh couldn’t help but take comfort in Zusa’s annoyed, thousand-yard stare.

“It’s nice how you share his interests,” Iroh said with a smirk when they got back to the plane a few steps before Mako.

Zusa snorted angrily and pulled herself into the plane. She was still slumped over and pouting when Mako caught up with them.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he got inside.

“We can always head back inside,” Iroh said with a smirk. “I’m sure the guide’s got a lot more Avatar stories.”

Zusa kicked the back of his seat. “Shut up and fly.”

Iroh did. Ember Island was closer but Fire Fountain City’s festival would begin the next day, so Iroh landed the plane on a small airport on the island, and they stayed in an inn which, to Iroh’s delight and Zusa’s pique, only had one room available that they all had to share. (“We apologize deeply, Your Highnesses, but the festival is so popular …”) They struck out for the festival early in the morning, before the sun rose, although word had gotten out that they were in town and by the time they arrived in the city several people stopped the Prince and Princess for photographs and autographs. (Iroh always smiled to himself when they wanted a photograph with the two of them and asked Mako to take it, but then a few people recognized Mako from his time with the Avatar or his pro-bending career and that ruined Iroh’s mood.)

While some people occasionally spoke of destroying the Great Gates of Azulon, firelords Zuko and Izumi had both rejected the proposals for being too costly and impractical. (Iroh always thought they could probably ask Avatar Korra to go into the Avatar State and do it, but now he felt even more ambivalent about the prospect.) Ozai’s statue at the center of Fire Fountain City, however, had come down almost immediately after the war. There’d been numerous protests -- not only from Ozai loyalists but also artists and sculptors who called the fire-belching statue a work of art -- but the statue was quickly replaced by one of two intertwined dragons, a beautiful piece that looked even prettier amidst the splendor of the Fire Festival.

“In a few years we’ll probably change the name back to North Chung-Ling,” one of the vendors said to Iroh. “But now people like the new fire fountain. I don’t know. Change always comes slower than you like.”

They stayed for both days of the festival, eating Fire Flakes and playing carnival games and watching the firebending demonstrations. Besides a tense moment where Mako said it reminded him of his trip with Avatar Korra to the Glacier Spirit Festival in the Southern Water Tribe, everyone had a great time. There was a dance at the end of the first night, and Iroh had chilled out enough (and maybe had one more drink than he should) to happily dance with Mako and his sister.

When the festival was over, they visited a museum on the island. While it had some artifacts and paintings from the Hundred Years’ War and photographs from Firelord Zuko’s reconstruction at home and abroad, most of it focused on the early years of the Fire Nation, even claimed to have artifacts from their days on the Lion Turtle and from the Sun Warriors. (The museum referred to them as an extinct people, although those in the royal family knew better. Still, given how instrumental they were in the rebirth of the dragons Iroh wondered if the tribe could stay secret for much longer). Separate wings of the museum were dedicated to the other nations. Zusa complained that she was too tired to look at them, but Mako said he really wanted to see them. He asked if Zusa was okay with being left behind, and she said she was although Iroh could tell she really didn’t mean it.

“How could he leave me all alone like this?” Zusa grumbled after sitting with Iroh in silence for about twenty minutes. They’d been on a rather uncomfortable bench in the main rotunda.

Iroh smiled and shrugged dramatically. “Guess he’s not the great guy you thought he was.”

“Shut up and get me a tea!”

“What am I? One of the servants?”

Zusa whimpered and rubbed her head. “I shouldn’t have drunk all that stupid Lava Sake …”

It had given Iroh a bit of a headache as well, so he went up and got them both a tea. (“Chai, please! No, wait, jasmine!” she called after him.) They drank together in silence. When he was half done, he heard Zusa sigh loudly, saw her doubled over her drink with her head resting against her palm. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

Zusa ripped it away. “Go find Mako. I want to go back to the inn.”

If she hadn’t looked so miserable, Iroh would have told her to find Mako herself. Ugh, she really was an overgrown child, he thought as he made his way through the Water Tribe exhibit. He didn’t find Mako there, or in the Earth Kingdom exhibit. As he was leaving that one, however, he saw Mako in the next room - an exhibit dedicated to commoners who’d become part of the royal family. Mako was staring at a portrait of Ursa.

Iroh winced. The portrait was a famous one by the artist Qiyan Yi. Beloved by other artists for his originality and ingenuity and hated by everyone else for his general arrogance and allergy to drawing what he was told to draw, Qiyan Yi had taken a commission from Firelord Zuko to paint a portrait of his mother, and he had painted her portrait with her left side being her true face and her right side the face she had used hiding in exile. Great aunt Kiyi, who had just gotten used to her mother’s “new” face, howled and cried upon seeing it, and Firelord Zuko refused to pay for it. Despite that, the portrait had gone for a high price in private markets before being donated to the museum.

“I didn’t know she wasn’t royal,” Mako said.

Iroh looked at him in surprise. Mako pointed to the placard next to the picture.

“I was reading this. Ozai found her in a village.”

“Sort of,” Iroh clasped his hands behind him as he stood next to Mako, stared at the painting. “He learned she was the descendant of Avatar Roku, first. She didn’t actually want to marry him. Honestly, we don’t talk much about what happened to her. Everyone wants to know, but it’s less … pleasant than the story of the Hundred Years War.”

“I guess so,” Mako said. He turned to look at Iroh, actually gave him a smile. “I hope you’re having fun, by the way.”

Iroh started. “Wh-What do you mean by that?”

“I’m an older brother too,” Mako said, and Iroh felt his stomach drop. “His girlfriend’s really nice, but I wouldn’t want to go on a vacation with them. I hope you’re getting something out of this.”

Ah … so that’s what he meant. Iroh took a deep breath. “I’m … I’m having fun. It’s nice to see the country. Is it …” Iroh forced himself to sound cheerful. It still felt like a betrayal not to resent Mako. “How do you like the Fire Nation?”

“I … I like it,” Mako smiled and put his hands on his hips. He looked around the room as if appraising it, as if appraising the wider country. “It’s interesting. Republic City has so many different types of people. So does the Earth Kingdom, but I could still see traces of my brother in them. Here I feel like everywhere I look I see strangers who look like me. It’s … I don’t know. It’s like I’m connecting with a part of myself I didn’t know existed. But on the other hand …” Mako trailed off. He seemed to be thinking very hard for a moment. “Never mind. I’m having a good time. I’m learning a lot.”

“Right,” Iroh murmured. He coughed and straightened his shoulders (always the military training when he was nervous …). “Well, Zusa wants us back at the inn.”

Mako nodded. At first Iroh led the way but when Mako caught up to him, he eventually let Mako walk ahead. Some sort of drive had gone out of him.

Most members of the Fire Nation family tended to live very long lives. True, Iroh could have some sort of ticking time bomb inside him like his father or get unlucky in a fight. Still, he always expected to take the throne at one point in the distant future. Iroh never thought about what would happen after that, never considered that while he might one day sit in that throne room, given his history it probably wouldn’t be his children who’d be next in line.

He stared at Mako’s back, feeling sick inside. This trip was making him morbid, he thought. Very morbid.

~*~*~

Zusa’s headache didn’t last. After a few hours of de-compression back at the inn she was eager to go out to a club and hear some jazz music.

“I heard of this club, Triad Triangle, it’s supposed to be just like the ones from Republic City!” Zusa grasped Mako’s hands and seemed to shake from excitement as she said this.

“It’s called what?” Mako exclaimed. “Why would anyone name a club after a bunch of criminals? That’s sick!”

“Oh, it’s just a joke!” Zusa spat. She seemed almost offended at his offense. “Come on, I’m tired of all of these stuffy museums. Let’s have some real fun!”

The club was not real fun. They waited nearly an hour for a table only to have some buxom woman wearing a dress that just barely covered her butt ask them what they wanted to drink in a fake accent unlike any Iroh had ever heard before.

“These prices are ridiculous,” Mako said as he looked at the drink menu.

Zusa scoffed. “You’re with a Prince and Princess, Mako, we can afford it.”

“They’re still going to be terrible for the price,” Iroh grumbled and shook his head. “What’s with these cocktails?”

“Yeah!” Mako chimed in. “The names are awful. ‘Red Lotus Delight,’ ‘Electro-Glove Uprising,’ ‘Spirit Vine Sake Surprise?’ And why is there pepper in it?”

“Pepper and miju,” Iroh tossed the menu back on the table. “Who would drink this?”

“I would drink this!” Zusa snapped, and snapped her fingers at the waitress.

Iroh felt more vindicated than he should have when she gagged on the first gulp.

They ordered a bowl of Fire Flakes, a plate of octopus balls and a seafood pancake of middling-to-bad quality. Iroh was ready to eat off the bad liquor and go home, but suddenly the lights dimmed even more and the room went quiet.

There was a small stage at the opposite end of the restaurant with a small jazz band. They were pretty good, but before they’d been playing just loud enough to make conversation uncomfortable and Iroh resented them for it. Something special was happening now, though, and the sudden loud cheering from the other customers when a beautiful, short Fire Nation woman wearing a glittery red dress stepped out from behind the curtains and onto the stage made that something special clear.

“Hey, fellas. Mei-Hui’s here.” She batted her eyelashes and cupped her hand behind her ear as the crowd cheered for her. Then she giggled, hiding her teeth behind her hand, and spoke into the microphone again. The pianist began to play a few slow tinkling notes and glissandos as she spoke. “You know, I’ve been feeling mighty low for a real long time. Being so far from my home in the big city has got me down. I miss the bright lights, the crowded streets, the beautiful vines …” (Iroh wondered where the recent destruction and rubble fitted into all this.) “ … but there’s one thing in all this world that makes me happy.”

The crowd cheered as Mei-Hui snapped her fingers. She caressed the sides of the microphone with both hands, her red nail-polish shining in the spotlight. The pianist continued to play a slow, soft accompaniment as she sang.

“When I was just a little child  
I spent my days alone.  
No joy, no games  
For poor old me,  
So solemn and forlorn.

“Then someone came  
They took my hand  
Brought me into the light.  
Those were sunny, happy days  
But now there’s endless night.”

Mei-Hui’s voice slowed, drawing out the notes in the last line. Then she struck a pose, and the brass and string instruments sprung to life. It took Iroh a few minutes to realize he was already tapping his feet to the music. Mei-Hui swayed her hips as she sang, and it seemed like she was bouncing along with the beat.

“But what’s this? You’ve got my hand.  
And now my heart! Oh, ain’t it grand?  
Put your hands around my waist and we’ll dance --  
Yes! We’ll dance together!

“What’s this? You’ve come along  
And now the swing’s back in my song.  
Now don’t you let me go and we’ll dance --  
Yes! We’ll dance forever!

“Oh my new baby, I’ve been so --  
I’ve been so very lonely.  
Ever since my lover left.  
But now you’re here. I’m here.  
You’ll be my one and only.

“You see I thought love had passed me by, but then …  
I found it in you, I found it in us. Oh, I found it again.”

Mei-Hui continued to dance, her hip-swaying turning into kicking her feet up and back behind her at the knee. Zusa stood up and offered Mako her hand, and before Iroh could think they were up on the dance floor. Mako’s cheeks were red as they danced and twirled together.

When the Mei-Hui started singing again, Zusa and Mako were singing along, singing to each other.

“Oh my new baby, I’ve been so --  
I’ve been so very lonely.  
Ever since my lover left.  
But now you’re here, I’m here  
You’ll be my one and only.

“You see I thought love had passed me by, but then …  
I found it in you, I found it in us.  
Oh, I found it again.”

The music had slowed considerably on those last five words. Iroh watched Zusa and Mako kiss, long and slow. They were still kissing when the spotlight dimmed and the bar turned completely black.

~*~*~

They were at Ember Island for a week. Zusa and Mako had their own room this time, although Iroh was right below them in the cabin. He covered his head in pillows but sometimes he could still hear them at night.

Iroh went for long walks as the the couple relaxed on the beach or went to see the plays. They’d come back and complain about those plays at the end of the night, but they kept going. (“They’re funny-bad,” Zusa said by way of an explanation.)

Sometimes Iroh thought he would do anything to get that song from the bar out of his head.

Once on one of his walks he passed the couple as they were coming out of the water. “It’s like I’ve been breathing stale air all my life,” he overheard Zusa say to Mako. “When I’m with you I feel like I’ve come outside for the first time.”

Iroh looked back to see Mako kiss her. It occurred to Iroh that even if she still loved him he couldn’t kiss her in public that way. Of course, he never wanted to. He was never proud of the way he felt for Zusa.

“It’s better this way,” Iroh whispered to himself. That song was still playing in his head.

~*~*~

“Do we really have to go here?” Zusa asked as the three of them stared up at the museum’s facade. It was built to resemble the spires of the Southern Air Temple, but painted in shades of sepia, like a photograph instead of reality.

“Don’t you feel a responsibility to see it?” Mako asked.

“I didn’t kill them,” Zusa muttered under her breath.

“That’s not the point!”

Iroh sighed. “There’s no other reason to visit this island and we’ve already made the journey. We might as well go in and look.”

It was dark inside the museum. Iroh and Mako both instinctively created small flames in their palms, but a tour guide came and told them to put it out. (“There will be lights when you need them,” he said.)

The museum was built along a slow ramp circling from the bottom to the top, getting narrower and narrower as the guests climbed higher. The first level showed scenes of Air Nomad life: paintings of how the temples looked in their heyday, artifacts from the four temples (some stolen by the Fire Nation long ago, others donated in the present), and excerpts from scrolls on the Air Nomads’ games, food and way of living. Some of these excerpts included letters and diary entries from little children.

The next level showed the birth of the genocide: Sozin’s obsession with finding the next Avatar, the opportunity presented by the comet, the bloodthirstiness of the Fire Nations’ soldiers. This spiraled up into the battles at the temples -- the four-pronged invasion and how vulnerable the Air Nomads were to attack. There were some stories of the heroism of some of the Air Nomads who fought back, gleaned from accounts of repentant Fire Nation soldiers and historians who spent their lives trying to re-enact the trajectory of the battles from archaeological evidence, but everything presented to the guests pointed to the hopelessness of the situation.

The last part of the spire was the aftermath, including graphic photos of the mounds of skeletons at the temples, left to rot for years before the temples were re-opened and they were finally cleared away. Mako spent a long time looking at the photos from the Northern Air Temple, although in that one the bodies had been moved a long time before photographs were invented. It mostly showed how it had been repurposed into a place to build Fire Nation weaponry.

“It’s all under lava now,” Mako whispered, but Iroh didn’t ask what he meant.

A lift at the center of the museum carried the guests down into the basement. The exhibits hinted at a somewhat brighter future, with paintings depicting the birth of the Air Acolytes and testimonials from the new airbenders, but even then there were charts showing the population of the new airbenders now compared to before the war, displays highlighting the differences in culture between then and now, that showed something had been irrevocably lost.

Zusa had been pouty and frustrated for most of the climb up, but by the time she got to the top of the spire she looked crushed. Down in the basement exhibit, as Mako was looking closely at a photograph of Avatar Korra posing with a young, dark-skinned airbender, Zusa ran out of the room.

“How do I get out of here?” she asked a guide. When he pointed to some stairs off to the side she ran up them, sobbing.

“Zusa!” Iroh ran after her, climbing the steps two at a time. He followed her outside of the museum, caught her standing in a nearby alleyway doubled over and gasping for breath. “Zusa, what is it?”

“Does he think I don’t know?” Zusa sniffled and wiped her face with her sleeve, but her cheeks were still red and tear-stained. “I’ve heard this ever since we were young! I know about the Air Nomads. How can we forget about the Air Nomads? We’re … we’re obsessed with the Air Nomads!”

“Zusa, please!” Iroh said. Part of him was horrified, and yet ...

“What’s the point of all this? Is a few hours of me being miserable going to bring them back? Who are we helping? What are we …?” she sobbed again. “I hate being Fire Nation! I hate being a part of this stupid family!”

“Don’t say that!” Iroh took his sister in his arms, crushed her against his chest. She hugged him back, looked up at him. He had to admit later that he absolutely knew what he was doing when he kissed her.

“I’m sorry,” Iroh said afterwards, his hand still on her cheek, wiping away her tears. They both knew he wasn’t apologizing for the kiss.

“We … I have to find Mako,” Zusa said. She ran back out to the street, but still spared a look back at him.

End Part Three.


	4. Chapter 4

From the moment the plane’s wheels touched the Capital City tarmac, Iroh steeled himself to leave the country. He spent the day packing, pictured himself making terse, firm goodbyes to his family and and a borderline hostile goodbye to Mako.

And yet when the sun set that evening Iroh doubted himself. He could still feel Zusa’s kiss on his lips.

Iroh told himself he was just wishing her goodnight when he knocked on her door. As Zusa ran into his arms, Iroh realized he never believed that.

Making love to her in his old room, this relic of his adolescence, Iroh felt like he had come home. Zusa always had sex viciously, desperately, all nails and teeth and screams he muffled beneath a strong hand. Iroh thought he’d be finished fast - his long absence from her exploding into a quick rush of lust - but while he came quickly at first, Iroh rose to take her twice more.

When they had finally exhausted each other, they lay in one another’s arms. Sometime during the night, Iroh felt Zusa kiss his cheek.

“Good-bye, sweet brother,” she whispered in his ear. In his drowsiness Iroh assumed she meant ‘good night.’

~*~*~

Nobody told Iroh about the party.

He woke up the next morning to find servants scrubbing every floor and surface of the castle, decorators in the main hall, and the cooks surrounding Fire Lord Izumi and Grandma Mai with charts and questions. Great-Aunt Kiyi laughed as she shuffled toward him, arms outstretched.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Kiyi asked. Her high-pitched voice seemed to vibrate with excitement. “Oh, I never thought I’d see this day.”

“See what day?” Iroh asked.

Kiyi got a glimpse of something behind him, gasped again and put a finger to her lips. She shuffled past him, and Iroh turned to see Zusa and Mako behind him. Both of them had uncomfortable rictus smiles as Kiyi clasped them in a double-hug.

“She seems happy,” Mako said as Kiyi went back to Izumi and Mai. “Is this just because of the party?”

“Why are we having a party?” Iroh asked.

Zusa shrugged a shoulder, a sly smile on her lips. “Does anyone actually need a reason to have fun?”

Iroh would have said no, but later that day, when a messenger said that former Earth Prince Wu would be arriving just after lunch, he grew suspicious. (“Wait, why is he invited to this party?” he’d overheard Mako ask.) When Iroh saw Druk fly overhead a few hours later, that suspicion turned to dread.

Despite his worry, Iroh rushed to the throne room to meet him. There was probably no small level of irony in how Zuko -- the once-exiled prince, the nation’s number one traitor, the Fire Lord who started his controversial reign promising peace and then almost lead his country into another war within a year -- had become the most beloved person in the country. To his credit, Zuko received his accolades from the citizens who crowded the streets cheering in his wake with a humble gratitude, and when he entered the Fire Lord’s chambers, Iroh couldn’t help but see him not as its former owner and the legendary leader, but as his beloved grandfather.

“Father,” Izumi bowed as she greeted him. “We are deeply honored to receive you on this auspicious day of our --”

“Oh, please. Like the peasants are actually watching this nonsense.” Grandma Mai plodded toward Zuko, wrapped a wide-sleeved arm through his. “Come on, you jerk. Tell me all about your adventures. It’s been dull as dirt living in this castle.”

“You know, he’s still my father,” Izumi muttered under her breath as she watched them go.

“But Mother, why is he here?” Iroh asked.

Izumi squinted as she looked back at Iroh. “I would have thought Zusa would have told you.”

A wide, gnawing pit suddenly opened up in his stomach. No, Iroh thought. No, she would never be that rash. That stupid. Not right after what had happened …

A servant rushed into the throne room and, after begging the Fire Lord’s pardon for intruding, informed her that Wu had arrived and the banquet would begin in less than an hour. Iroh took the opportunity to go for a walk.

He went to the turtle-duck pond. Well, where else would he go? This was the place where he used to play as a child, where he came to think as a student, where he and Zusa first ... 

There were several times in Iroh’s life when he’d spend hours or days in a dark haze, his throat tight with the thought of what he had done. He’d spent so much of his life feeling guilty, feeling rotten, feeling like some kind of sick monster.

Iroh tried to remind himself of those times, tried to call that black shame to smudge away the dreadful feeling of loss he knew was coming.

Instead, he grew more angry, more jealous, with each and every step.

~*~*~

Iroh watched the party in silence, his thick hands wrapped around his chopsticks, his jaw set and his breath coming out in angry snorts.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time. Why wouldn’t they be? As far as Fire Nation royal parties went, the gathering was relatively small, with only some of Izumi’s closest advisors and politicians that couldn’t be ignored attending, and some members of the press had also come -- although whenever they approached the dais, Izumi had requested no pictures.

“Oh, why not?” Mai said with an angry snuffle. “It wouldn’t kill you to show some warmth once in awhile.”

“The same could be said for you,” Izumi muttered under her breath.

Iroh heard his grandfather groan. “Izumi. Mai. Please. Let’s try to have a good time and be polite to each other. For Zusa’s sake.”

“Oh, you know how it is in this family,” Grandma Mai smiled and leaned against her ex-husband. “I don’t mean anything by it. Right, Izumi?”

Izumi huffed and glared off into the distance. Grandpa Zuko responded by petting Mai on the hand.

“You know, Mai, to Izumi you’re always going to be her mother.”

“For better and worse,” Izumi grumbled.

Grandpa Zuko cleared his throat. “I only meant that you take Mai’s jabs more seriously than you should.”

“Our daughter takes the things I don’t mean very seriously and the things I do mean not seriously at all.”

“I do not!” Izumi spat. Then, her sudden burst of anger over, she sighed and leaned back on her throne.

Grandma Mai shrugged and turned to Grandpa Zuko. “So, how’s life without me? Are you playing the field or have you found another old bag to take my place yet?”

Was Zuko actually blushing? Iroh wasn’t completely sure, but his grandfather was quiet when he spoke again. “You know that was never the point of our breakup.”

“Still, I always thought if I weren’t in the picture you’d take up with -- ”

“I told you once before, Mai. There was a time for that to happen. That time is long passed.”

“The new Avatar’s 21 and probably did it with the guy sitting on the other edge of the table. How much more time do you need?”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not the young man I used to be. She shared a long life with him and still mourns. And I have other people to consider.”

Izumi’s face turned a shade paler. Iroh wanted to ask why, thought he heard Mai ask another question, but at that point the waiters brought out the first course.

Iroh tried to enjoy his curry soup, but his anger was spoiling his appetite. That, and Prince Wu kept distracting him.

“Ugh!” Wu pushed the soup onto the floor. “Water! Water! Are there any waterbenders in the house? Help!”

Mai groaned loudly. “Can someone get the powerless figurehead of the Earth Confederacy some bread?”

Someone did. The insult clearly irritated Wu, but he couldn’t do much about it, so he went on talking about himself.

“Of course, they still haven’t held the elections yet. Do you know that you actually have to go out and find polling places? And then pay people to count all the ballots? What a nightmare! No wonder my Aunt never wanted to have them. ”

“Yeah, that sounds really terrible, Wu,” Mako said with a roll of his eyes.

“It is! Ugh, at least I have my music career. My last street concert had almost thirty people! Most of them only have ten! And if you think the girls loved me,” Wu chuckled to himself, “you should have seen how crazy I drove their lizard dogs!”

In another time and place, Iroh would have found this display of prideful failure fascinating. As the night went on, and the courses came and went, even Wu couldn’t provide a distraction from his anger, for the confrontation that he knew was coming.

When the last trays of niangao were pulled away, Izumi stood up and clapped her hands. “May I have your attention, please? My daughter, Princess Zusa, has an announcement she would like to make.”

Iroh huffed, his brows curled and heavy over his eyes, as his sister stood up, one of her hands wrapped around Mako’s.

“I …” Zusa looked out over the crowd, sucked on her lips. “I think there comes a time in everyone’s life where they reach a crossroads. This … this point where they have to decide if losing the comfort of the familiar is worth making a change.

“Mako, can you stand up?” Zusa asked, and when he did she dropped to her knees.

Wu shrieked. The crowd erupted into surprised murmurs. Iroh felt his heart pounding.

“Mako,” Zusa said, one of her hands still gripped around Mako’s. “You’re noble and kind. The things you’ve done have benefitted the world, and I think our time together has proved how good we’ll be for each other. It’s been a privilege to welcome you into my heart, into my country -- and to welcome you back home.”

Zusa reached behind her belt. She pulled out a box, opened it up. Two rings sat inside.

“Mako,” Zusa held out the box to him. “Will you marry me?”

Even through the blood pounding in his ears, Iroh heard shocked gasps from the crowd. Zuko bent over toward Mai and Izumi.

“She’s doing this now?” Zuko whispered harshly. “I thought she’d already asked him!”

“Well …” Izumi looked frantically over at her mother, but Grandma Mai’s eyes were locked on the couple. “ … I thought Mako already understood what was happening tonight, at least.”

He didn’t seem to. Mako stared down at Zusa, blinking and dumbfounded. Then he looked out over the crowd, seemed almost horrified.

“I …” Mako gulped. “I … guess …”

“No!” Iroh roared raced toward the couple, jumped on the dais in front of them. Wu screamed again, fell back in his chair, while Zusa leapt to her feet. Mako instinctively wrapped his arms around her, which made Iroh even madder.

“I will not let you do this!” Iroh said. “Zusa, please, you don’t even love this guy!”

“Yes, I do!” Zusa clung tightly to Mako.

“No, you don’t!”

“And how do you know she doesn’t?” Mako challenged.

“Because I’m her brother, and I know her, and you don’t.”

“You’re nuts! You haven’t even seen her for years!”

“Iroh!” Izumi’s voice -- her loud, firm “ruler” voice -- echoed throughout the hall. “Stop this dishonorable display this instance or I will not hesitate to have you removed from this hall.”

For a moment, her chastising gave Iroh a realization of exactly what he was doing, of how ridiculous he looked. Wu, who had a reputation for being a complete coward, bit his nails as he watched this exchange, but others in the crowd were whispering to each other.

“Why is this happening?”

“Has he gone mad?”

“Would Izumi really remove him?”

“Why isn’t Firelord Zuko stepping in?”

“I told you she barely had her house in order …”

Iroh clenched his fist. “It’s …” he sighed deeply, turned up his chin. “He’s not right for you, Zusa. You know why …”

More gasps rang from the party guests. Iroh didn’t realize why until -- to his utter shock -- Wu stood up.

“How …” Wu sputtered, “How dare you say something like that?”

Mako flipped the dais over, knocking Iroh to the ground. When Iroh perched himself up on his elbows, Mako loomed over him.

“Is that what this is all about?” Mako yelled. “That I’m not Fire Nation enough. Well, I’ll show you how Fire Nation I am. I challenge you to an Agni Kai!”

Gasps echoed around him. Even Zusa was crying out, “No!” But Iroh got to his feet, glared as he bowed toward Mako.

“I accept,” he growled through clenched teeth.

~*~*~

In her capacity as Fire Lord, Izumi declared that both Iroh and Mako would wait a day before their duel. It was an effort to cool their heads and put a damper on the negative press and public shock that had followed the announcement of the fight. Unfortunately, word of mouth made the news of the battle even more notorious. Izumi couldn’t reasonably ban an audience from watching the fight, and even after she’d allowed the maximum audience into the arena, thousands surrounded the castle, awaiting news.

Iroh wasn’t willing to back down, either. Not from a challenge from that man -- that boy -- who he knew Zusa didn’t really love. Iroh could sometimes feel the eyes of his mother, his grandparents, watching from the crowds on either side of the arena. Still, Iroh’s focus was on Mako. He stood at the opposite foot of the raised arena, dressed in the traditional fighting uniform of the Agni Kai just like Iroh -- shirtless with armbands, pants, traditional shoes and the shoulder garment that would be thrown off before the fight began -- although Mako still wore a gauntlet over his left forearm.

This was it, Iroh thought. He was about to ascend the steps to the arena, paused for a moment when he saw Zusa striding toward him.

“This has gone far enough, Iroh,” Zusa said.

Iroh frowned at her. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”

“You know what I mean!” Zusa said, her voice a harsh whisper. “Everything! Grandfather said he would have tried to stop you if it wasn’t undercutting mother’s authority. So step down and let this be over, please. If not for me, then our family.”

“It was over, Zusa. If you want it to be over again, then tell Mako to stop and take back your rings.”

“I …” Zusa’s hands balled into fists. Iroh shook his head and continued to climb the steps. “I can’t!” she called after him, her voice breaking.

No. You can but you don’t want to, Iroh thought. He wished he knew why.

An attendant joined him on the raised arena as he walked its length to meet Mako, who to Iroh’s surprise was followed by Wu.

“This is soooo exciting, Mako. It’s like a legend. Brave, heroic warrior. Rescuing the princess from her evil, crazy brother. Oh! I’ll write a song about it when it’s all over. It’ll go a little something like ‘Mako, Mako, he’s a brave warrior/Fighting the mean and evil prince/Who is not as handsome as him!””

“Wu!” Mako said to him in an exasperated voice. “I told you you’re not allowed to talk up here!”

“Oh! Right. Can I still sing?”

“No!” Mako and Iroh yelled at the same time.

Wu shut up after that. Iroh and Mako bowed to each other, then turned and walked back the customary twenty steps. They kneeled to the ground.

When they turned back to face each other they shed their shoulder garments, as tradition demanded. Mako took another moment to rip off his gauntlet.

The audience gasped at the sight of his red, lightning-like scar which ran up his arm like latticework. It didn’t look as painful as his grandfather’s, and yet it was bigger, raised up from Mako’s arm. Even Iroh was distracted by it for a moment.

Then Mako was rushing toward him.

Iroh released the first fire blast, but Mako blocked it easily. He countered with his own, and Iroh strained a bit before blowing it back to him. Mako’s blast packed more of a punch than he thought. Iroh had never seriously watched pro-bending, but he was under the impression that the firebending done there wasn’t that impressive. Some traditionalists dismissively compared it to fireworks, said the practitioners were so used to the armor and padding that they couldn’t handle themselves in a real fight.

Mako was more than a pro-bender, though. He had the stances, the quick hits. And yet he was surprisingly agile and powerful. At one point Iroh hit him with his hardest blast, and Mako crouched as the fireball hit him, lost only a few inches of ground before taking the control of the fire and coming at him again.

Iroh could feel the audience’s tension, their excitement. As time wore on, they started to gasp at every blow. Most of them cheered for Iroh when he got in a good hit, yet a moment where Mako flipped over a blast and threw another one at him merited gasps and applause.

“Yes!” Wu exclaimed, fists pumped in the air. “You go, my big, brave tough guy!”

Agni Kais may have been fought to the death in Fire Lord Ozai’s time, but as much as Iroh hated Mako he had no interest in killing him. So even as they battled, even as they came closer and closer to each other and Iroh’s confidence in his ability to win this battle grew shakier, Iroh resisted the instinct to use lightning.

Then Mako was an inch from him. Iroh dodged the first blast, but knew he might not be able to dodge another. He loosed a bolt from his fingertips, hoping it would scare Mako enough to make him fall back.

Instead Mako caught the lightning, screamed as he re-directed it.

Then everything happened very fast.

Iroh expected a hard fire blast to come his way but instead Mako swept his leg, caused Iroh to fall backwards. As Iroh closed his eyes, prepared to hit the ground, he felt Mako’s arms around his torso. Mako pulled Iroh toward him, and then kissed him on the lips.

The whole arena went silent. Iroh’s eyes widened as he felt Mako’s tongue enter his mouth. Then he heard sobbing.

“Noooo!” Wu cried out. “No, no, no! How could you?”

Iroh flailed, pushed Mako away from him and ended up falling to the ground. When he wiped his lips, looked up, Mako looked down at him with a glare on his face.

“Is it out of your system now?” Mako yelled.

“Wh-what?” Iroh sputtered.

“Well, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Mako held up his hands in an almost ridiculously dramatic shrug. “The following Zusa and I around, insisting on coming on our dates. All those dirty looks in our direction whenever we hug or kiss, those snide smiles when we couldn’t be alone but then you were nice to me when I was alone with you. Admit it! You’re in love with me!”

“What? N-No, I …” Iroh tried to think of an explanation, but the crowd erupted into loud gasps and whispers. The news must have spread outside because he could hear pounding at the arena doors. Iroh looked into the crowd, saw the Fire Lord, saw his mother, standing up.

“Prince Iroh,” Fire Lord Izumi said. “Is this true?”

Iroh’s mind raced. He couldn’t tell the truth, and yet if he lied in public like this he’d face controversy, face having to keep up this particular lie, forever.

Then again, he wondered, did it really matter? So what if people hated him for what he had to say? He wouldn’t lose the crown over this. He never planned to marry. There was, the more he thought about it, no reason for him not to lie.

Iroh stood up, looked out over the confused, expectant crowd. In it, he caught a glimpse of Zusa. She had her hands over her nose and mouth, tears in her eyes as she looked at him.

Despite everything that happened, Iroh smiled. How could he not? It felt like the good-bye he hadn’t recognized.

“Yes,” Iroh looked out over the crowd. “Yes, I’m --”

“No …”

Iroh turned to Mako, shocked. The young man was walking backwards from him, shaking his head.

“No, I … I …” Mako ran his fingers through his hair, and when he pulled them away his hair was shabby, unkempt. Iroh realized Mako didn’t look much like him at all. “I … I just can’t believe this.”

As Mako ran away, a hand over his mouth, Iroh realized with horror that Mako knew. Then, when Iroh looked out over the crowd, saw his mother glaring at him, he realized that Mako might not be the only one.

End Part Four.


	5. Chapter 5

Mako’s hands were still shaking two hours later, his thumbs sliding multiple times off the latches of his suitcase. As he packed he tried to avoid Wu’s imploring stare. Wu’s eyes were wide and his lips were stuck in a pout as he sat on the bed Mako had borrowed, the bed where … Mako shuddered again.

“Ugh!” Wu threw up his hands. “Can we please talk? Please, please, please, please, please.”

“No!” Mako shouted.

Wu flinched. His eyes somehow grew even bigger and sadder.

Mako groaned and shook his head. “Look, I’m sorry for yelling but I’ve already explained that there’s a lot going on here and I’m still processing it and I really just … I can’t do it, okay?”

“But why? It’s good to talk. It’s healthy to to talk. You’ll probably feel better if you get it all out.” Wu reached out and took Mako’s hand. “I’m not your employer anymore. We’re buddies. Well, we were always buddies but now we can share everything with each other.”

Mako looked down at their clasped hands. He sighed. “Well, okay. See, I think that Zusa is actually in love with --”

Wu cut him off with a groan and grabbed onto the front of Mako’s jacket. “Oh, I’m so glad we can talk I’m dying inside. Why did you kiss him, Mako? Why? Why? What does he have that I don’t?”

Mako frowned and pushed Wu away. It wasn’t a hard push, but Wu still hit the ground.

Wu covered his face with the back of his hand and wailed. “So long we’ve been together. So long I’ve been there for you! And for what? For what, Mako?”

“Wu, I think we should just be good acquaintances,” Mako muttered under his breath.

He had just finished packing when the door opened. Mako’s chest tightened at the sight of Zusa.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

Mako walked past her through the door-frame. When Wu tried to follow, Mako slammed the door shut in his face. His eyes locked on Zusa’s.

“I just have one question,” Mako said. He didn’t want to seem threatening, so he didn’t yell, even if inside he felt like screaming. “All that time we were together. Every hug. Every kiss. Everything you said to me. Was that all because of him? Were you thinking of him the whole time?”

“I …” Zusa twiddled her thumbs, gulped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, Zusa, you do,” Mako frowned. “I’ve had enough sad breakups to know what that look Iroh gave you means.”

“It’s not like that!” Zusa said, her voice becoming more and more high-pitched as she spoke. “I … Iroh’s just overprotective of me.”

“Stop lying!”

“Okay, okay!” Zusa shrieked. “We’ve … I’ve … I’ve made some mistakes in the past.”

Mako’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Mistakes? Zusa, I’ve made mistakes! What you …” Mako stopped speaking, took a deep breath. “Actually, you know what? I’ve spent the last hour or so imagining the worst. So, why don’t you just tell me exactly how far this went. Is … is this just some weird, mutual crush?”

Zusa pressed her lips closely together. Her face seemed to be turning red, then green.

Mako exhaled again, shook out his hands. “Okay. Did you kiss him? Did you --?”

“Yes!” Zusa covered her face with her hands. When she spoke her voice started to break. “Yes, I did, okay? Every terrible thing you’ve probably imagined I’ve done with him. I’ve done it for years.”

Mako wondered how he could somehow hear the blood rushing in his ears. His chest felt tight. “H-How many years?”

Zusa snuffled and wiped her eyes. “Since I was eighteen.”

Mako’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what to say, so he started to turn away, stumbled a bit as he went. He was vaguely aware of a door opening. Ugh, was Wu actually watching this?

“Wait!” Zusa grabbed his arm. “I can explain.”

Mako pulled away. “Please, don’t.”

“No, please,” Zusa pushed herself in front of him, grabbed onto his shoulders. “All my life, I’ve … I’ve been the spare. Third in line. The one who can’t firebend. The one who can fight but can’t be a soldier. But my older brother … he’s wonderful. He’s handsome, a firebender, a general, everyone loves him and … and so do I. How could I not? My mother’s not mean but she’s always busy. My grandmother’s so bitter. My grandfather’s always somewhere else. When I grew up Iroh was the only one who really, demonstrably loved me, who cared about what I said and thought. He was like my Dad and my best friend rolled into one and when I grew up I realized --”

“I don’t care!” Mako felt a little bad when he saw Zusa flinch, but the roiling feeling in his stomach kept him from trying to keep his voice even. “I’m sorry you were unhappy growing up, but this doesn’t change anything.”

“I’m just trying to explain to you that we were close …”

“Zusa, I’ve grew up with my little brother and only my little brother since I was eight years old. We lived on the streets together. We had to work with gang leaders so we could maybe get food once in awhile. Some days we had to fall asleep in each other’s arms since we were so cold and wet and miserable. And you know what? I never had sex with him!”

Zusa blinked a few times. “You … you have a brother?”

Mako’s mouth dropped open. What had he been doing these past few weeks?

Zusa suddenly shook her head. “Well, that’s different! You don’t like men.”

“You don’t know me, Zusa.” That time he’d meant to sound angry, but …

He needed to leave. As Mako walked back into his room, Wu came up beside him.

“I remembered you had a brother, Mako.”

Mako smiled a bit as he picked up his bags. “Thanks.”

“Yeah!” Wu flexed his spindly arms in front of Mako. “Bolan, legendary waterbender and hero of the South.”

Mako kind of wanted to hit him. Then Zusa came in, and Mako looked at her and just laughed a bit. “Why did you invite him, anyway, Zusa? Did you think he was my only friend? You knew I was on Team Avatar, why didn’t you invite any of them?”

Zusa frowned. “I wouldn’t cross the street to meet Asami Sato. And I’m sick of your stupid obsession with the Avatar. You dated her for six months! She doesn’t like you anymore. She probably doesn’t even like men anymore.”

“She changed my life.”

“So what? You’re going to cling to that forever? Are you just some washed-up athlete who always holds on to his past glory and never moves on?”

“At least I did something with my life!”

It was a cheap shot. Mako tried to assure himself that Zusa made some too, but he still felt a bit miserable when he saw the tears run down her cheeks. He remembered his breakup with Korra -- both of them -- and the tears in Asami’s eyes before she kissed him in that empty warehouse.

How was he here again, so soon?

“Oooh,” Wu winced, started to shuffle away. “You know, I’m … I’m not good with this stuff. And … and this situation is really, really weird so I’m just … I’m just going to go. Um … bye.”

Mako didn’t say anything as Wu left. He wished he could feel relieved. Instead he just wondered how he’d tried so hard not to hurt the people he loved and just ended up making them miserable. Again.

Zusa wiped her eyes. “I … At first I was just hurt, I wanted to make Iroh jealous. He kept saying we couldn’t keep doing what we were doing, that we had to move on. It was fun at first, but … then there was that night, that week at Ember Island. All that was real, Mako. I swear it.”

“I know it was real,” Mako said. He reached into his bag for something, and the hope in Zusa’s eyes made him feel even worse.

Still, he put the box of rings back in her hand, folded it over it.

“I think we could have been friends,” Mako said. He kissed her cheek, then hoisted his bag over his shoulder. He could hear the thud as Zusa dropped to her knees, her sobbing, but he didn’t look back.

To his relief, no one stopped him as he found his way out of the palace, blended in with the tourists when he was let out into the streets through a back door. He hailed a cab and didn’t look back, although occasionally he would look out to the side, at the buildings around him. Mako tried to imagine his mother living here, and slowly realized he couldn’t.

~*~*~

Izumi had been in the same position for the past hour -- sitting in the throne room behind the flames, her mouth resting on her folded chin. Her parents sat behind her as her breathing came out in heavy, angry bursts.

A guard came in, bowed. “Fire Lord Izumi, the Crown Prince is outside of the chambers awaiting further instruction but so far we have not been able to find the Princess …”

“Then look harder!” Izumi yelled at him. The guard was so startled he immediately ran out of the room.

Zuko coughed behind her. “Daughter, I know it seems strange, but it’s important not to jump to conclu--”

“Please don’t, father.”

Zuko stayed silent. Izumi then heard Mai clear her throat.

“Well, I just want to say that if the worst is true it certainly doesn’t come from my side of the family because if you ever knew your Aunt Azula …”

“I told you to be quiet!” Izumi turned and yelled. Then she heard someone cough.

Izumi turned to see Zusa walk into the room, a guard behind her. Two guards led Iroh into the room a few paces behind them.

“Lee told me you wished to see me,” Zusa said as she got down on her knees. The two guards roughly pushed Iroh down next to her. He glared up at them for a moment, but then sat silently.

Izumi’s nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed. She turned to Iroh. “How long has this perversion been going on?”

“Izumi, please …”

“Don’t interrupt me, Father! Iroh, answer the question.”

Iroh stared at the gap between his knees. He mumbled something.

“Speak up!”

“Since I was 24 and Zusa was 18 … ma’am.”

Izumi gripped the cloth of her robes over her heart. There was a part of her that had wished even now that she’d been mistaken … and yet it explained a lot of what had happened over the past couple of weeks.

“I …” Izumi shook her head. “I am deeply, deeply disappointed and … and disgusted. This … Do you have any idea what you two have done?”

“Yes, I … I,” Iroh gulped. “I couldn’t help myself.”

Izumi leaned forward, her face turning red with anger. “You couldn’t help yourself? You, a grown man, couldn’t help having sex with your sister?”

Iroh glanced over at Zusa, which only made Izumi madder. “Don’t look at her! Answer the question!”

“Mother, it was my fault!” Zusa cried out. “I asked first.”

The guards were sending each other shocked looks now. Izumi’s hands balled into fists. If this got outside the palace …

“Guards, take the Crown Prince and Princess away to the dungeons -- to separate dungeons -- until I decide what to do. I’m deeply disappointed with the both of you. You’ve … you’ve shamed the family.”

As the guards were lifting them up by the arms, Iroh stared at the ground, but Zusa’s head snapped up. Her golden eyes were burning with rage.

“We’ve shamed the family? Are you kidding me?”

“Zusa, please …” Iroh whispered. “Don’t make it worse.”

“No!” Zusa pulled herself out of the guards’ grasp, marched up to her mother with her hands defiantly on her hips. “We come from a long line of genocidal murderers and Iroh and I have shamed the family?”

Izumi frowned. “Don’t make excuses for what you’ve done!”

“I make no excuses, Mom! I’ve been taught to be ashamed for everything my family’s ever done since the moment I learned to talk. My great-grandfather Ozai the tyrant. My great-aunt Azula the would-be assassin. My ancestor Sozin, murderer of millions of people who’d be long dead by now anyway. I’ve felt their sins -- we’ve all felt their sins -- to the point that we’re afraid to cough in another country’s direction for fear of setting off a war. Shame comes naturally to a person like me!”

“No, if it really came naturally to you, you’d be ashamed of your disgusting deeds and your heartless words of defense. Get the both of them out of my sight!”

The guards gripped onto her arms. Zusa didn’t struggle back, but she screamed as she was pulled away.

“This is a family built on sin! A nation built on lies! How can I help it, Mother? How can I help it?”

Izumi heard Zusa’s screams turn into sobs before dying away. Izumi’s hands were shaking as she lifted her hands to her eyes. Her glasses clattered to the floor as she wiped away her tears.

“Oh, Izumi.” She felt her father shift himself closer to her. Izumi turned and cried on Zuko’s shoulders. For a moment, Izumi felt herself starting to feel better …

Mai coughed loudly, snuffed after clearing her throat. “Well, that could have been a lot worse. At least Iroh didn’t diddle Zusa as a kid or something.”

“Mai!” Zuko exclaimed.

“What?” Mai frowned and shrugged. “Someone has to look at the bright side in this bad situation. You should both be glad I’m trying to be positive for once.”

“How can you be positive about this at all?” Izumi wiped her face on her sleeve. “Of course, you’ve always gotten a certain joy out of me failing. What could be a bigger failure than this?”

“That’s not fair,” Mai said. “I want things to be different in this country. Wouldn’t you rather hear them from me than someone else?”

Izumi groaned and shook her head. “Not … not now.”

“Maybe you … we should leave Izumi alone for a bit, Mai,” Zuko said. He stood up, tried to take Mai by the hand. Mai let Zuko get her to her feet, but instead of following she approached Izumi, rested a hand on her shoulder.

“Look, what just happened … that’s a lousy thing to hear as a mom. It’s not even a particularly nice thing to hear as a grandmother. I’m sorry. Really.”

Izumi sighed. Despite how angry she was she felt herself reaching back for her mother’s hand. “I’ve raised terrible children.”

Mai shrugged. “Kind of makes sense when you think about it.”

Izumi glared at Mai over her shoulder.

“I’m just saying. I was a bad kid. Zuko was a bad kid, too. We both come from a line of bad kids who’ve turned into a lot of bad adults. Zusa has a point. By the standards we’re working with, they’re not so terrible.”

Izumi sighed. She reached over to pick up her glasses, cleaned them with the edge of her sleeve. “I don’t know if the public will think so if this gets out.”

“Ehh, you’ll find a way to deal with it. You always do.”

Was that a compliment? Izumi wondered as Mai made her way out of the throne room. When she was gone, Izumi and her father started to walk out together.

“What do you think I should do?” Izumi asked him.

“I don’t think you should keep them in the dungeons.”

Izumi sighed deeply. “I can’t keep them together anymore, though. I …” she sighed. “Do you think it’s my fault? I was never … never a good wife to my husband.”

“He always spoke highly of you, although I didn’t think you should have married him.”

“I couldn’t have broken the dynasty. I know things are different now. The Earth Kingdom is no longer a Kingdom. It’s hard to imagine even the Northern Water Tribe remaining a monarchy if both of the twins have children …”

“Not even Avatars can see the future. If they did, we’d probably have a more balanced world.” 

“You know what I mean. You know I’m … different.”

“I do. And I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Perhaps we all kept them too isolated, too dependent on each other. Or maybe something else went wrong.” Zuko placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “You know … it wouldn’t be wrong to ask her for advice.”

“Perhaps later. I … I need to think.”

They retired to their chambers. For much of the night, Izumi paced in her room. Occasionally she reached for her phone. Once she called the trans-ocean operator before disconnecting the call again. Then she thought and paced for an hour more.

In the early morning hours, Izumi called the guards to her room and told them to escort her children from the dungeons back to their chambers. She tried to sleep, but in her heart knew she wouldn’t be able to. In a few hours she would be in the throne room again, would be staring down at her children -- the two people who she loved more than anyone in the world -- and would deliver her orders.

Izumi rehearsed them again in her head. “Because you are my children, and because I do not believe it will help, I will not put you in any prison. However, you are not to see or communicate with each other for the next five years, nor will you be permitted to stay in this country during that time, and I order further punishments …”

~*~*~

For Iroh, his punishment had been an enforced leave of absence from the United Forces, a leave that the military actually wanted, given the recent whisperings. Still, while Iroh believed the order to be a good one, he wasn’t looking forward to the lonely days ahead, the lonely years with nothing to do and little to wish for.

That was how he found himself a week into his punishment in a dive bar squashed between the vines and a bombed-out neighborhood, nursing some sake. (“I couldn’t help myself,” he muttered again and again into the glass, shaking his head.) The sun had just gone down when Iroh recognized a voice behind him.

“I just … I think it’s me. It’s gotta be me.”

“Nah, bro. Who could have guessed what had happened? I mean, now everyone knows what happened but … a few months ago? No way.”

Iroh looked over his shoulder. Sadly, unlike his first meeting with Mako at the palace, he recognized Bolin almost instantly. Then again, it was hard to forget the guy you’d been tied to for a few hours. Actually, Iroh wasn’t sure he would have recognized Mako again. He had gotten another haircut, although to be honest it looked less like a haircut than an attempt to hack off all but a half-inch of his hair with scissors. Iroh bet he’d done it himself.

Mako leaned across the table at his brother, one finger pointed at him and the rest wrapped around a glass. He thrust the finger as he spoke, sloshing more and more liquid onto the table. (Bolin had a glass of liquor in front of him, too, but he seemed to have maybe drunk a fourth, if that.) “No, I … I think that … that some people are meant to have, you know … normal relationships. And I’m … I’m the guy who makes two women cry and then they fall in love with each other. Then I try to move on and the girl wants their brother, instead. Like, I thought I was in the worst love triangle of all time, and then ...” Mako swigged the rest of his glass, slammed it on the table and opened up his balled hands near his head like he was imitating an explosion. “Wooo! How can it get any worse?”

“It’s not worse. I mean, it’s gross. But that’s not your fault. Actually, you did nothing wrong. Everything that blew up in your face was completely not your fault for once.” Bolin gave Mako two thumbs up. “Progress, right?”

Mako slammed his head on the table and groaned for a full minute. Bolin reached over and pet his shoulder.

“Bro, everything is going to be fine. The way I see it, I’m just further down the path of love than you and you need to catch up.”

Mako lifted his head off the table and squinted at Bolin. “What?”

“I fall in love with the Avatar, you fall in love with the Avatar. I was in love with a rich girl who was way out of my league, you were in love with a rich girl who was way out of your league.”

“Are you talking about Ginger and Asami? How was Asami out of my league? She and I dated for months and Ginger yelled at you for kissing her …”

“Anyway,” Bolin continued. “I dated a princess who was creepily close to her brother, now you dated a princess who was creepily close to her brother. So all you need to find is a grandchild of the original Team Avatar to fall in love with, and we’ll both get married within three months of each other just like I always dreamed of!”

Mako frowned as Bolin took a big gulp of liquor. Then he sighed and shook his head. “You know, even if I believed in this weird coincidence theory, Zusa was Zuko’s granddaughter.”

Bolin stopped mid-gulp and put down his glass hard. “Oh, yeah. Hey, maybe you can follow up on that weird gay thing between you and Wu.”

Mako scoffed. “I don’t have any weird gay thing with … You know what? If you’re so set on this ‘our love lives are so alike’ thing, why don’t you follow up on your weird gay thing with Varrick?”

“Hmmm …” Bolin seemed to be thinking for a minute, then he nodded. “I guess that’s fair.” He looked behind Mako and his eyebrows popped up. “Oh, but let’s not talk about this.” He stood up and waved. “Korra! Asami! Over here!”

Mako leaped up from the table and grabbed the front of Bolin’s shirt. “You invited them?” he whispered to his brother harshly. “What were you thinking?”

“What? I thought we could all soothe your broken-hearted blues! Three’s company and four’s a party, right?”

“They’re my two ex-girlfriends! I don’t want to see them now.”

“Hey!” The two women’s voices seemed to harmonize as they approached the brothers.

“Great to see you, Mako,” Asami said as she grabbed a seat between them.

“I love your new hair!” Korra exclaimed, ran her hand through it. “Hey, Asami. Come feel how fuzzy it is.”

“Please, don’t.” Mako grumbled, but he didn’t try to push their hands away as they petted and cooed over it.

Iroh might have laughed if he weren’t feeling so awful. The noise of the crowd died a bit, enough that the chorus of a brutally familiar song could be heard from a phonograph on the other side of the room.

Asami gasped. “Oh, Korra! That’s our song.”

They started singing together.

“‘Oh my new baby, I’ve been so --  
I’ve been so very lonely.  
Ever since my lover left.  
But now you’re here. I’m here.  
You’ll be my one and only.’”

Iroh had to sympathize when he heard Mako groan again.

Asami suddenly stopped singing, though.

“Hey,” Bolin asked. “Why are you slumping down in your seat like that?”

“Shh!” Asami said. “General Iroh’s there. I used to date him. It was so, so weird. I had to break up with him because he wouldn’t stop talking about his sister.”

Iroh kind of expected it when he felt himself pulled off the bar stool, but he was surprised when he realized it was actually Bolin that had punched him in the face.

“Ow!” Iroh held his hand over his cheek as he looked up at Bolin.

“Ha!” Bolin stared down at Iroh, his fists on his hips. “That’ll teach you to humiliate my brother, you gross, weird, weirdo!”

“Bolin!” Mako pulled him back. “Don’t do that.”

“Yeah,” Korra said, joining Bolin at his side. “Iroh’s our friend. And it’s not like those rumors are really true.”

“Actually, they are,” Mako said.

Korra’s eyes widened. She picked Iroh up, and he suddenly felt himself sailing toward the window.

~*~*~

“You know,” Lin Beifong shook her head as she stared down Korra, Bolin and Asami from the other end of the interrogation table. “I was actually thinking for a minute that I’d never see you here again. And for attacking the son of a head of state!”

Mako saw the side of Korra’s mouth curled up from behind the one-way glass where he watched the interrogation. “Uh, you and I both know that this is not the worst thing I’ve done to a future head of state. Or an actual head of state.”

“So you’re not even going to justify it?”

Korra shrugged. “Not really. Iroh tried to stop my best friend’s engagement because he wanted his own sister. I’m not saying it’s right, but I’d do it again.”

“I second that,” Bolin chimed in.

“Me too,” Asami said. “Although I want to state for the record that I didn’t actually do anything and shouldn’t be here …”

Mako blinked a few times in surprise. Beifong sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Also, Bolin and I are benders and we just hit the guy.”

“You threw him across the room! He nearly went through the window.”

“He’s fine.”

Lin rolled her eyes. “While I sympathize, given the unprovoked nature of your attack and who General Iroh is, I can’t completely get you out of this. I’m going to recommend to the judge a fine.”

“Aww, thanks chief!” Bolin said with a smile.

“At least 10,000 yuans for you and 40,000 yuans for Korra. The judge will decide if you pay more or less. I also need a 2,000 yuan bond for both of you if you want to go home tonight.”

Korra and Bolin both pouted and looked at Asami.

Asami rolled her eyes. “Can’t I just donate a new police car?”

“No,” Lin said, crossing her arms, “because that’s a bribe, young lady.”

Asami sighed and shook her head. “Give me a pen, I’ll write a check …”

~*~*~

Iroh had been sitting at the interrogation table for a half hour now, his forehead resting on his folded hands, when Mako came in the room.

Mako had changed into his detective uniform for this, Iroh noted. Iroh suddenly felt weirdly naked without his own uniform, but he wouldn’t be wearing that for awhile. 

“Hi,” Mako said as he sat down. “How’s your shoulder? And … well, your face.”

“It’s fine. Could have been a lot worse,” Iroh said. He pet the bandage over his cheek and then winced -- maybe it was a little worse than he’d thought. “I’m surprised they’re letting you take my statement.”

“Officially.” Mako laid the clipboard he’d been holding on the table. “Although I don’t think I’ll be writing much. We had a lot of witness accounts at the scene and my friends have basically confessed. Unless you want to sue?”

“Not particularly. I’ve had worse beatings.” Iroh’s shoulders slumped as he sighed. “I … I suppose I owe you an apology. I … I have no real justification for what I’ve done. I’m 40-years-old and ...”

“Wait, what? You’re 40?”

Iroh blinked. “Yes. You knew I was older than Zusa …”

“Yeah, but not that older! You sound like a teenager!”

Iroh frowned. “Anyway, as … as wrong as it was, Zusa was the love of my life. I … I probably won’t have another one. And since you looked so much like me, I think I saw in you the life I’d never get to have. I’m sorry to have ruined that for you.”

“Well …” Mako scratched the back of his neck. “To be honest, I probably would have given Zusa the rings back, anyway …”

Iroh started. “What?”

“I did really like her. And … as much as I hate to admit it, I probably liked the idea of her. I spent six years of my life homeless. To go from that to marrying a princess? It’s kind of like that legend Wu was trying to jam our story into. But I’m … I’m not Fire Nation. I like your country. I’m glad I know where I came from, but it’s just not where I belong.”

“So you belong here in this wreck of a city?”

Mako smiled to himself. “It’s where my friends are. I … I really realize that now.”

“I see.”

Mako stood up. “I know how you feel, but forty isn’t that old. You can find someone else.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re 23.”

Mako shrugged. “It used to be hard for me to believe that, even at just 23. Anyway, you’re free to go, want to follow me out?”

~*~*~

Zusa had never felt this cold before.

She stood on the port bow of the coal ship in a huge, gray parka. She’d brought a pretty red and gold one with her, but it had been more decorative and warm, and eventually the natives took pity on her and gave her an extra workman’s coat. As the snow flitted around her, blurring the already gray sky, she occasionally blew into her hands.

Zusa heard steps behind her. She lifted the furry rim of the hood out of her eyes as he passed by. “How much longer until we reach the Southern Water Tribe?” 

“Less than two hours, Princess Zusa. We should be sighting land, shortly.”

“Thank you,” she said, then went back to looking at the horizon.

So this was exile, Zusa thought. She tried to imagine her grandfather coming here as a teenager in his search for the Avatar, but it had always been hard to see the old man as ever being so young and foolish.

“Zusa,” her mother had said, “you’ve long complained of lacking purpose, just as your grandmother has complained of the Fire Nation being too separate from the world. Therefore, I task you as my ambassador …”

A year and a few months in the Southern Water Tribe, then to the Earth Confederacy and the Northern Water Tribe. Eventually she’d get to the United Republic, but by then Iroh would be somewhere else.

Zusa supposed she had to live up to her grandfather’s name at one point. She also supposed she was happy. Izumi told her to watch her temper, to listen and report and be thoughtful. Her mother said that Tonraq had raised the famously hot-headed Avatar, wouldn’t be impressed by any of her anger …

Zusa heard a few notes of a song, but when she turned around to see where it was coming from, she only saw her grandmother.

“How you doin’, kiddo?” Mai asked as she leaned next to the railing besides Zusa.

“Okay,” Zusa said. It wasn’t really true, though. She was terribly lonely, and didn’t like the way the ship’s workers whispered. The Royal Family denied anything strange had happened but there was … talk. A lot of it, more of it accurate than comfortable. “It’s going to be strange, dealing with Tonraq. He’s the father of my ex-fiance’s ex-girlfriend, after all.”

“Ehh, he’ll be fine. It’s Raiko or that new spitfire in the Earth Confederacy that you’re probably going to have to worry about. Worst you can say about this guy is that he’s stubborn.”

Zusa nodded. She thought she saw a patch of white on the horizon, but that might have been more snow. She shuddered again.

“You know … you said ‘ex-fiance’ before. Do you really still think about that kid?”

“Not really,” she said.

Mai shook her head. “If you’re going to be a diplomat, you have to work harder on your pai-sho face.”

Zusa closed her eyes, and hoped she’d see land when she opened them again.

~*~*~

Two months after Izumi delivered the verdicts to her children, Kya arrived at the Fire Nation palace to no fanfare. She never left the country again.

Mako spent a lot of time during the next year with his friends. Once in awhile, he’d open up his wallet and look at the pictures he kept inside -- him and Asami at Tarlock’s party, him and Korra at the Glacier Spirits Festival, and him and Zusa at the Fire Fountain Festival. He’d occasionally think of getting rid of the last one, or all of them, but couldn’t.

“I can’t wait to see who comes next,” Korra told him one day.

Mako smiled awkwardly. A couple days later, he wondered if Bolin had ever wanted to see the Fire Nation.

As for Iroh, the United Forces had other generals, but they often called him for advice, and he eventually became an official paid consultant.

Five years was a long time to wait. In the past, time and distance and other people hadn’t stopped his feelings for Zusa. Sometimes he feared that a part of him would always be waiting for her, and another part of him didn’t want to give up. Despite everything, he hoped Zusa’s next lover would be less like him.

On the other hand, Iroh thought to himself, a lot could happen in five years, or even ten or twenty years, and the Fire Nation royalty tended to live a very, very long time ...

The End.


End file.
